Right To Die

19

"I KNOW IT'S STILL ONLY DECEMBER, JOHN, BUT YOU'VE GOT TO think ahead. You see, the marathon's like Good Friday: you'll be on the cross from twelve noon to three. Only for you she'll be more like four, four and a half hours. Of steady pounding and chafing. “Think about what to wear. You have to dress warm to go out to Hopkinton, on account of you'll be standing around for hours till the race starts. Maybe layers of old clothes that you can just take off and throw away on the street. If it's raining, get yourself a trash bag, one of those big green ones. Cut a head hole in it so you can use it like a poncho, then tear it off with the clothes when you hear the gun. For the running itself just shoes, socks, jock, shorts, and a T-shirt. lf it's below fifty degrees, wear a long-sleeved cotton turtleneck under the T. Remember, usually you dress warm to keep your heat in against the cold. Over twenty-six miles, you'll be wanting to let the heat out. Hell, your whole innards'll be producing heat like a blast furnace. Vent it out through sweat, and the wind'll wick it off keep you cooler. "Another thing. Before you put the socks on, turn them inside out and slap them a few times against your thigh. Got to get rid of all the sand or dirt particles. Over the miles, one piece of grit can cut through your toes like a hacksaw.

"Spread some Vaseline around your body. Don't be stingy, eh?

Really slather it on your feet and crotch, and don't forget your nipples. I've seen men finish a marathon bleeding like they'd got arrows in their chest.

“ Finally, don't wear nothing next to the skin that you haven't been wearing during training. Something old, soft, and comfortable is what you want. Don't worry about how you'll look for the camera, neither. No matter what you do, two hours into the race you're going to look like shit warmed over."

Turning at the Western Avenue bridge after two miles, I felt the wind billow at my back. My joints were a little rusty, the leg muscles a little stiff. Not from age, I was sure, as much from running each morning instead of every other. It was hard to think about a race four months away, but picturing the details of what I'd be wearing was helping me focus on the early stages of the training program. Passing Boston University's law school tower, my mind clicked over to Maisy Andrus. Two nights before, I'd driven the professor and her husband to the airport. I'd checked in with Inés Roja the next day, she telling me there was no word from Andrus or Hebert. Roja had called the airline in New York, however. Their flight had departed for Sint Maarten on schedule.

In the car I'd told Andrus I didn't have enough information yet to form any conclusions. I was no further along now. Neely reported no unexpected prints on the note or the book from Plato's.

Four untraceable notes, and a rogue's gallery of people Andrus had offended. Walter Strock. from her politics at the law school; Manolo and stepson Ray Cuervo. from her actions in Spain; Louis Doleman, from losing his daughter; Steven O'Brien, from her stand on the right to die. Even Tucker Hebert. if you didn't believe he enjoyed being a trophy husband.

Which left Gunther Yary and his skinheads. I hadn't talked with them after the scuffle at the library. Back from the river and doing my stretching in the condo, I was thinking about driving to their "clubhouse" in Dorchester, when the phone rang.

"John Cuddy."

"John, it is Inés Roja. Can you come to the law school'?"

"What happened?"

"There is another note."

"What does it say?"

"I – please, can you come to look at it?"

"Twenty minutes."

Roja was sitting rigidly behind her desk, hands antsy on the blotter. Seeing me, she opened the center drawer, taking out a plastic Baggie as though it held a snake.

I took it from her and turned it over to read.

"YOU CAN RUN CU – NT BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE"

When I looked back at Roja, she was dipping into a tissue box from another drawer.

After she'd blown her nose and wiped some tears, I said, "When did you get this?"

"I came in as always by eight-thirty. It was not here then. I went down to the Xerox room, and it was here when I returned."

"How long were you gone?"

"Fifteen minutes, perhaps more. I had a lot of copying to do for things I need to send out for the professor."

"These trips to the Xerox machine. You do it regularly?"

"I do not understand?"

"Do you usually do the copying first thing in the morning? Predictably?"

"Oh. Oh, I see. No, but the man did not deliver the note."

"How do you know?"

"It was in this." Roja reached down and came up with a manila interoffice envelope, about twelve of the thirty To and From lines already used. The last entry was just a To Maisy Andrus.

"Could you set it on the blotter?"

"I'm sorry." She complied. "I saw nothing wrong with the envelope when I opened it. It was in with the mail and five others of the same kind of envelope."

"Who else would have handled it?"

Roja just resisted touching it again. "All the people who used it before. And Larry."

"Larry?"

"The mail clerk. But he gets many of these. It is easier sometimes just to drop off the interoffice mail in his room on the second floor."

I took out a pencil and tickled the envelope over to where I could read the earlier names. I recognized only one. Walter Strock. "Can we use your phone to call Sint Maarten?"

Roja had the card with telephone numbers already on it. Within minutes we had a connection and a hotel operator with a lilting voice who would be pleased to ring Mr. Hebert's room.

There was a metallic buzzing, once, twice, three times. "Tuck Hebert."

"Tuck, this is John Cuddy."

"Shee-it, John! The hell can be so important, you got to bother us on our first morning here?"

"I'm sorry, Tuck, but I'd like to speak with your wife."

"Try me first. What's the problem?"

I didn't see that insisting was going to be much help. "There's been another note."

"Well, he's still sending them, he still thinks we're up there."

"That's not the point, Tuck. From the note, he knows about you two taking a trip."

"Read it to me."

I did.

"Lordy, John, all that means is he saw us going with you and some luggage. We already knew he's found out where we live, what with that note in the mailbox and all. Now it seems like he's staking us out. I don't like it much, but I don't see where we're any worse off than before."

"Tuck. Listen to me, will you? Within about thirty-six hours of your taking off, he knew you two were gone and got a note to circulate through the law school's interoffice routing system. I want to talk with your wife and with the tournament and hotel security people."

"No go, John. Folks down here were nice enough to think of inviting an old has-been like me. I'm not about to get everybody into an uproar over a few nut notes."

"Tuck – - "

"I'll tell Maisy about it when I figure she's rested up enough to hear it. I'll be with her until the tournament starts, and then I'll tip a guy I know can watch over her when I'm out on the court. Now, that's it."

"You realize – "

"Signing off, partner. Just remember, sticks and stones can break my bones…"

I heard a click and static.

Roja took the phone receiver back from me and replaced it very carefully, as though the console might explode.

Then she looked up at me. "What can we do?"

I was thinking about that when a familiar, if not particularly friendly, voice said, "Now that the scintillating Professor Andrus has flown the coop, I wonder if you could come see me about a complaint I'm composing for the Board of Registration of Private Investigators?"

When I followed Walter Strock into his office, the blonde from the library debate was sitting in one of the visitor's chairs. She wore a one-piece wool dress, robin's-egg blue, with a sash.

Strock said, "John Cuddy, this is Kimberly Weymond."

Weymond took about a minute getting to her feet. I was noticing her moist lipstick and heavy eye shadow before it struck me that her dress was a twin for the outfits Maisy Andrus wore.

"Kimberly is my research assistant. She will stay as fair witness to what you and I discuss."

Weymond's hand felt more manicured than callused. "Mr. Cuddy." She smiled in a your-place-or-mine way.

"It seems you misrepresented yourself to me on Monday, sir."

I turned from Kimberly to Strock, who was dropping into his big swivel chair. Weymond resumed her seat. I took the other captain's chair, arranging it so I could watch both of them.

"Tell me, Professor, just how?"

"I rather think I'm a better judge of that than you, sir. Now, more to the point, I believe that when you were here on Monday, the specific false pretenses you asserted consisted of – "

"Why don't we cut the shit and call the cops, Strock."

Weymond just aborted a laugh. Strock stared at me as though he were wondering what I could have said that would have sounded like "cut the shit and call the cops."

"I beg your – "

"Try Area A. Ask for Detective William Neely. He'll remember you, I think."

Whatever words were climbing up Strock's throat lost their footing before reaching his mouth. I had the impression that he was desperately flicking through his data banks, trying to find the incident I was talking about.

"Let me refresh your recollection, Professor. It was the time you got sick after that school party, and you had that difficulty on Beacon Hill. Down toward Cambridge Street? An apartment, I think – - "

"Kimberly!"

His voice was so shrill, she jumped a little.

"Yes, Walter?"

"You're excused."

"But – "

"Please."

Weymond looked from him to me just once. Standing again, her panty hose rustled. She left the room without another word, probably trying to play back and file away what I'd already said. When the door closed behind her, Strock said, "How dare you! I can have your license – "

"Strock, I can have yours too."

He shuddered once, and suddenly the acerbic academic devolved into someone a lot older and grayer. "What do you mean?"

"I know all about you and the student that called the cops. Now, you're going to answer every question I ask, and politely. Otherwise, the student newspaper gets to play Washington Post to your Dick Nixon. We understand each other?"

His lids lowered halfway. "Yes."

"How did you find out that I wasn't straight with you on Monday'?"

"The girl that I didn't pick as my research assistant."

"Nina Russo?"

"Yes."

I started to get up. "Sorry. Strock."

"No! Wait, it's true. She was pissed off royally that I picked Kimberly over her. The stupid cu – Russo should have been amazed that she was even in the running, with her looks. She – Russo – was in a bar near here, complaining about me. When Russo said you talked to her about it, one of the male students overheard and later told Kimberly."

That seemed reasonable. It didn't take much to picture male students trying to play up to Kimberly.

"How did you know about Maisy Andrus being away?"

"The dean."

"Fill in the blanks, Strock."

A deep breath. "Maisy told him about some threats or whatever she'd been getting. Said she needed some time off. He told her he understood, even told her she could cancel her special session course. Then he became concerned as he always does about how that might play with the rest of the faculty. So he came to me for counsel." Strock mustered a wan smile. "He may be weak, but he is politic."

"When did he come to you?"

"When? Yesterday sometime. Yes, yesterday evening, just before my seven o'clock. I prefer my classes start on time, you see, and I recall being a bit testy that he was staying so long."

"What do you know about the threats?"

"Only what he told me."

"Which was'?"

"Just that Maisy had received them. For God's sake, man, the positions and people she associates herself with, I'm not surprised."

I got all the way up this time. "All right, Strock. Let's leave things at that for now. But keep it zipped, okay."

"You have no right – "

"I meant your mouth."